There are some transpositions, but eventually the split is like this. Note I'm not calling anything the 150 Attack. I think now this is really a plan, rather than an opening, the plan being to attack a Black castled king with h4-h5, but it can be combined various set ups with e.g. f3 or Nf3 or Be3 or Bg5.

I was a little surprised this came out on top. I rarely get the Austrian, and only from stronger players. However a popular recommendation is with an early e5 push. I'd never considered this as a wise choice, as it's Black that gets the choice of tactical chaos or an equal ending.

I've had all sorts of stuff thrown at me over the years. This is a decent summary. g3 has been used by the strong players. Going for an anti-Sicilian is more popular than this list might indicate, especially since so many books offer the Grand Prix as their anti-Sicilian choice.

I think it worked for Haygarth against Mestel in a critical last round game in the 1974 British at Clacton. The then opinion of the "experts" was that the plan with f3 and Be3 wasn't particularly good.

IIrc Bagirov had written a book on the Pirc in the 1970's; he opined - and that was the consensus - that Black should not castle and then was more than OK.

[quote author=1A1935570 link=1474639249/29#29 date=1475064920]So the advantage of 4. f3 is that it might trick your opponent into thinking you are a patzer

I think it worked for Haygarth against Mestel in a critical last round game in the 1974 British at Clacton. The then opinion of the "experts" was that the plan with f3 and Be3 wasn't particularly good.

That the 150 attack with Nf3 works underpins one of my repertoires. So start with 1. Nf3 g6, what do you do next? If you continue with 2. g3 to build "the King's House", they have 2. .. Bg7 and if 3. Bg2, then 3. .. e5 and you are in some danger of reversing the colours.

You can play e4 and d4, but following up with a 150 with Nf3 avoids the potentially passive nature of the Be2 Classical.

Later it was realised that you could just move the Bishop and provoking h6 and g5 was likely to be in White's favour.

That's correct. Like I already wrote in the 1980's I started with 4.f3. This way to play the Argentinean Attack received a heavy blow with the game Yudasin-Zaichik, Kostroma 1985. I remember looking at the move order 4.Be3 after I saw it and feeling uncomfortable with ...Ng4. Only when a NIC Yearbook demonstrated White's chances after 4.Be3 Ng4 and 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 Ng4 I switched. The second point is that 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 O-O 6.O-O-O prevents both ...c5 and ...e5.

But the development of chess theory can be full of irony. White scores very well after 4.f3 Bg7 5.Be3 O-O 6.Qd2 e5 while the 150-Attack seems to be defused. And 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 c6 6.Bh6 Bxh6 7.Qxh6 Qa5 8.Bd3 c5 enables Black to limit White's advantage to a minute endgame edge. A couple of years ago Merijn van Delft recommended the positional 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 c6 6.h3 but it seems to me that Black is very solid after Nbd7 (not O-O?! 7.g4!) 7.Bd3 Qc7 8.Nf3 O-O.

So for OTB purposes I'm contemplating going back to 4.f3 again.

The book had the effect good books usually have: it made the stupids more stupid, the intelligent more intelligent and the other thousands of readers remained unchanged.GC Lichtenberg

There is also to the war of information, as 4. f3, 4. f4 and 4. Nf3 give away something about White's intentions, but 4. Be3 and 4. Bg5 retain options whilst Black is trying to hold off from various moves to see how to react.

Those who want to go by my perverse footsteps play such pawn structure with fuzzy atypical still strategic orientations

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, stuck in the middlegame with you

Back in the early 1970s, when I learnt the Pirc and Modern from the Keene/Botterill books, magazine articles and the practical play of my contemporaries, there was a belief that if you placed the Bishop on e3, then you needed to protect it from attack by .. Ng4 either by f3 or h3. There was more reverence for the "law" about not moving pieces twice in the opening despite the evidence from mainstream systems,so there was reluctance to consider Bg5. Later it was realised that you could just move the Bishop and provoking h6 and g5 was likely to be in White's favour.

That said, Larsen used the move order 1. Nf3 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Be3 O-O 6. Qd2 against Penrose in 1967. Penrose responded with 6. .. e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qd2 Qe7 reaching a position similar to that which Larsen was playing against the Kings Indian at the time.

If you search for the position after move 5. Be3 from Larsen-Penrose, you find over 3000 games. It gains popularity from about 1989 onwards, with the names of Hebden, Emms, Gallagher etc being prominent amongst the pioneers.